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Swift Carbon: Inside a high-end Chinese bike factory

How carbon fibre frames are made

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Swift Carbon are registered in Hong Kong but have their offices in Xiamen, China so that they're right in the heart of the industry and able to keep a close watch over production. It’s a truly international company, with a South African founder, Dutch designer, Italian engineer and Canadian R&D and sales team

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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Mark Blewett is the founder and co-owner of Swift. He personally develops the geometry and characteristics of every frame, riding every day

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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The framed jerseys date from the 1990s, when Blewett raced professionally for teams including GSC Blagnac and Troia Marisco

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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The office’s showroom-cum-workshop currently houses some covered 2013 bikes and a couple of nude carbon prototypes. The framed picture on the left is from the 2011 Aeronaut TT bike’s appearance in Procycling magazine

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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This prototype of Swift's 2012 flagship, the UltraVox, was built in a hurry to test a layup adjustment to the chainstays

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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Mark thought the previous iteration was flexing just behind the bottom bracket so he had extra material added. This test bike doesn’t even have a front derailleur mounting plate – he just stomped around the island in the big ring until he was satisfied

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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This is where having an ex-pro running the company and the R&D pays dividends – the sensitivity to pinpoint the exact location of the flex and the strength to test it in the big ring. Mark says there’s a tangible difference between the two versions when you squeeze the dropouts together in your hands

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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Two more prototype frames. If Swift become the next Trek then in 50 years these could be valuable museum pieces!

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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Blewett with his mid-level 2013 TT frameset, the Drone, which will go on sale in mid-2012. The name comes from the military grade carbon fibre used to make unmanned drone attack aircraft

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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Prototype frames are built up here. In the corner lie half a dozen sets of Swift’s R50 Radium tubular race wheels

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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Mark’s business partner, Kevin – real name Chen Chun Gong. The majority of Chinese people who do business with Westerners adopt a Western name. The tea is still Chinese though, and it accompanies most meetings

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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The Xiamen city skyline from our hotel. The tall buildings are matched by an impressive infrastructure, with a skyrail and big, new roads full of big, new cars. A huge park runs down the centre, with two man-made waterways and some amazing light features

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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The Chinese share the Japanese’s famous love of karaoke – the venues here are the size of giant multi-screen cinemas and full of individual rooms, and there are loads of them. The blue-lit one opposite our hotel was very loud and kept going until 4am every day

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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This is the factory that produces Swift Carbon frames, alongside a number of others. It doesn’t look much because it isn’t designed to impress anyone. All the factories look the same. This place can produce 3-4,000 frames per month. The biggest factories can make 10 times that many. 500 people work here, with production spread over four floors

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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This is the pre-preg cutting area, where pieces of carbon fibre sheet are cut into the necessary individual shapes. Pre-preg is short for pre-impregnated, which means the material already has the epoxy resin impregnated into it before it’s laid in place

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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The carbon fibre sheet arrives on huge rolls

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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The cutting has to be efficient to minimise waste and control costs

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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It’s also crucial that the shapes have the fibres running in the right direction to ensure the strength is placed where it’s needed in the finished component

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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These are internal moulds for carbon fibre wheel rims. They ensure optimum compaction of the layers of carbon, even spread of resin and a smooth internal finish

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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The moulds are cut into sections to fit the pieces of the rims as they’re made. Once baked, the internal mould shrivels so it can be removed and discarded. Bladder moulds are preferred for frames but they can only be used effectively in larger structures

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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Okay, we admit it, we had to read the bottom line too, just to be sure

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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The workers in the layup areas are all women, which is something we’ve seen in European factories too. Women are far more precise and consistent at these sorts of jobs than men, we’re told

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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The layup process is a bit like a jigsaw – every piece has to go in exactly the right place and in the right order. The workers have instructions available for the part they’re working on but they all know their jobs very well and go about them with considerable care

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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If you’re paying attention, you’ve now learned the Chinese for ‘area’

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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All carbon components come through here. During our visit, everyone was making forks

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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These full-carbon forks are assembled with the steerer and crown as one and the blades added later

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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The air bag is for the internal moulding process and will be pressurised when the fork goes in the oven to compact the carbon layers

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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Partially constructed frames await the next stage. Each is labelled with a factory code containing model and size information

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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This is a semi-monocoque frame. The front triangle is made in one piece (monocoque) and the rear stays are bonded in later

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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The bottom bracket area looks particularly rough before moulding. Plastic inserts in the chainstays help them keep their shape

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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This head tube is simply layers of carbon fibre sheet at this point in the process

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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Freshly laid-up rims wait here before the curing process

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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This uncured rim was sticky, flexy and rough but looked much closer to the finished item than the uncured frames. The end of the internal mould is visible on the right side

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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A row of curing machines with one component mould being loaded. The moulds are very heavy so they aren’t carried by hand. When all the machines are running the temperature in this room often exceeds 40C

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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It doesn’t usually take this many people to lay a frame into a mould but this one is a 2013 pre-production prototype and they’re testing the process

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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A mould-fresh frame is much like a newborn baby – it needs tidying up before it’s the beautiful thing you imagined. There’s still plenty to do on this TT frame

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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The rear triangle will be slotted in and fixed with wraps of pre-preg carbon fibre

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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After each product has been cured, the moulds have to be thoroughly cleaned. It’s a labour-intensive process

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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These wheels have been cured and are awaiting finishing. Still too early to try tucking one under your T-shirt. The bits sticking out are the ends of the internal moulds. After they’re removed, the small hole is patched with carbon fibre sheet and sanded smooth

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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This factory has a room full of CNC (computer numerically controlled) milling machines with which they can produce their own moulds. This is a huge advantage in terms of cost and time. This one is for a semi-monocoque time trial frame

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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Even producing them on site, each mould costs around $8,000. And remember, you need one for each frame size. Getting a mould produced in Europe or America can cost many times that amount

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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When you consider the huge cost of producing numerous prototypes in carbon fibre, each requiring a new mould, it’s easy to see the value in computer design software. Changes to the carbon layup don’t require a new mould so there’s still a lot of real testing going on, as well as virtual R&D

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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Racks of frames await quality control inspection. Perhaps this is where you’re expecting a quip about Chinese made products but the standards here match the best we’ve seen in Europe. China got a reputation for making crap stuff because it said yes when Western companies asked Chinese producers if they could make things – anything – very cheaply. But you still get what you pay for, even here

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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Remember that rough looking frame straight out of the mould? This is where everything gets smoothed and finished by hand. If these were Italian guys in their 50s the marketing people would be calling it an artisan craft

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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Examples of each of the models of fork produced in this plant, all with the legs still separate from the steerer and crown

(Neil Gardiner)

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This room, with hundreds of frames on racks, is when you first appreciate the scale of production and start to believe that 4,000 frames are made here each month

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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This frame is starting to look good, with the dropouts and bottom bracket shell bonded in place. This worker is cleaning off the excess glue to get a perfectly smooth finish

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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... And this is where the spoke holes are drilled. We couldn’t see how he was lining up the drill but, no matter how skilled, we don’t believe he was calculating the hole spacing by eyeThis is where the valve holes are drilled into the rims...

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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Any pinholes or pitting in the surface can be removed here, so long as it wasn’t too serious to fail quality control

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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This worker is weighing fork uppers to ensure they’re within tolerance

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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Bonding the dropouts into the rear triangle

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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Bonding the headset bearing cups into place

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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And finally, bonding the bottom bracket shell into the frame

(Neil Gardiner)

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The thread for the cable guide is fixed in

(Neil Gardiner)

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Forks held in jigs to set their alignment

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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You can tell from the deep blades that this is an aero fork for a TT bike

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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A fibre optic camera is used to inspect the quality of the carbon fibre compaction on the inside of these fork steerers, and on many other products too

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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Precisely machined clamps for every tube shape

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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After the paint quality check, a small ‘OK’ insert is placed into the dropout. Don’t worry, the flaky paint is on the insert not the frame

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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Once finished, the frames are wrapped and treated very carefully. These are waiting to be packed

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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These finished wheels are awaiting their graphics. This was when we wished we’d brought a much bigger bag on the tour

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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At a quick count, that’s 14 pairs of 88mm aero wheels – £25,000 by the time they reach the shops

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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Framesets packed into boxes

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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The frames are checked carefully at every stage

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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If you’re making 4,000 frames a month, you’re going to need a lot of boxes. Swift will only produce around 1,000 bikes this year

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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This is the frame fatigue test rig. It appears to be a computer-controlled hydraulic brute yet require only an adjustable spanner and some WD40 to keep it going

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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This frame is being tortured with 100,000 cycles of a 1,100N (110kg) load. It’s clamped at the head tube and rear dropouts so the force is focused through the bottom bracket. The pistons push on levers that replicate the pedal position. This is a comfort-oriented frame (not a Swift) and the bottom bracket was swinging side to side by several centimetres

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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This is the brake performance test and it’s surprisingly analogue. On the right you can see how a known weight is hung from a brake lever to operate the calliper in the machine

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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The drum is spinning the wheel with a given force and measuring the resistance generated by the brake

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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That’s a mouthful, and it looks even harder to write in Chinese. Like the bottom bracket test, this machine repeats high loads to stress (bend) the frame

(Jamie Wilkins/BikeRadar)

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This is where it gets brutal. We didn’t get to see it in action but we’ve seen one before and it basically involves swinging a huge sledgehammer from a given height into the front axle to see if the head tube snaps off. It replicates riding into a wall at around 20kph

When we were invited by the fledgling Swift Carbon brand to visit their production facility in Xiamen, China, we leapt at the chance. This was a rare and very interesting opportunity to see the real core of the bike industry.

The big, prestigious American and European brands are only too happy to show off their impressive design centres and R&D facilities close to their headquarters but only their top-end frames, if any at all, are still made there. Public perception of the ‘made in China’ tag is still such that none of those famous names is throwing open the doors to their Asian factories just yet.

However, chances are your bike was made in the Far East, and by a factory that works for multiple brands. Underlining the relevance of this particular tour, not to mention giving great credibility to Swift, the facility visited by BikeRadar builds for several major European brands.

As a young brand, in their fifth year and new to the UK in 2012, Swift Carbon don’t have to worry about a history of making bikes in Tuscany or California. This is a thoroughly modern and international brand with technology, performance and value at its core.

Founder Mark Blewett, a South African former pro racer on the European scene in the 1990s, understands that Asia is now the real centre of the industry so rather than simply task a Chinese factory to build his bikes, he's based himself and his company right here to capitalise on the expertise that’s focused in the region. It allows him to keep a close eye on quality control and speed up product development by testing prototypes himself in the surrounding hills when the carbon has barely cooled from the curing oven.

Xiamen is a sprawling, booming industrial city on China’s south coast, close to Taiwan. Its port is one of China’s main export points and the greater city area includes thousands of factories and a population of 3.5 million people. The centre looks much like Hong Kong – packed with neon-lit skyscrapers and dripping in new money – but just 5km from the last of the factories lies a huge expanse of steep hills with twisting roads through the forests and farmland – ideal bike testing terrain.